To Free the Cinema : : Jonas Mekas and the New York Underground / / ed. by David E. James.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Archive 1927-1999
• MitwirkendeR: Arthur, Paul,; Bakaifis, Vyt,; Brakhage, Stan,; Breer, Robert,; Burckhardt, Rudy,; Curtis, David,; Foreman, Richard,; Gunning, Tom,; Harris, Bob,; Hoberman, J.,; James, David E.,; Keller, Marjorie,; Kubelka, Peter,; Kuchar, George,; Leacock, Richard,; Mekas, Jonas,; Moore, Peter,; Nygren, Scott,; Paik, Nam June,; Rabinovitz, Lauren,; Renov, Michael,; Ruoff, Jeffrey K.,; Turim, Maureen,
• HerausgeberIn: James, David E.,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2021]; ©1992
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (352 p.)

Jonas Mekas, one of the driving forces behind New York's alternative film culture from the 1950s through the 1980s, made for an unlikely counterculture hero: a Lithuanian emigr and fervent nationalist from an agrarian family, he had not grown up with either capitalist commercialism or the postwar rebellion against it. By focusing on his sensitivity to political struggle, however, leading film commentators here offer fascinating insights into Mekas's career as a writer, filmdistributor, and film-maker, while exploring the history of independent cinema in New York since World War II. This collection of essays, interviews, and photographs addresses such topics as Mekas's column in the Village Voice, his foundation and editorship of Film Culture, his role in the establishment of Anthology Film Archives and The Film-Makers Co-op (the major distribution center for independent film), his interaction with other artists, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and finally the critical assessment of his own films, from Guns of the Trees and The Brig in the sixties to the diary films that followed Walden. The contributors to this volume are Paul Arthur, Vyt Bakaitis, Stan Brakhage, Robert Breer, Rudy Burckhardt, David Curtis, Richard Foreman, Tom Gunning, Bob Harris, J. Hoberman, David E. James, Marjorie Keller, Peter Kubelka, George Kuchar, Richard Leacock, Barbara Moore, Peter Moore, Scott Nygren, John Pruitt, Lauren Rabinovitz, Michael Renov, Jeffrey K. Ruoff, and Maureen Turim.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Routines of Emancipation: Alternative Cinema in the Ideology and Politics of the Sixties -- The Old Days -- "Loved Him, Hated It": An Interview with Andrew Sarris -- The Apron Strings of mm Jonas Mekas -- How I Think I Made Some of My Films -- The Forest and The Trees -- Notes on Displacement: The Poems and Diary Films of Jonas Mekas -- During the Second Half of the Sixties -- Film Diary/Diary Film: Practice and Product in Walden -- A Portfolio of Photographs -- Reminiscences, Subjectivities, and Truths -- My Contacts with Jonas Mekas -- Lost, Lost, Lost: Mekas as Essayist -- Dear Friends -- Film Writing and the Figure of Death: He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life -- A Tale of Two Co-ops -- Jonas Mekas -- Wearing the Critic's Hat: History, Critical Discourses, and the American Avant-Garde Cinema -- Who Is Afraid of Jonas Mekas? -- Video at Anthology -- I Feel Passionate about the Film Journals of Jonas Mekas -- Home Movies of the Avant-Garde: Jonas Mekas and the New York Art World -- Appendixes -- Index